Good

I brought [from Germany and Poland] a lot of books, editions that would have been from that time. Poets from the 18th and 19th centuries, and Scandinavian writers. And my glasses; I found some frames that were made back then. My pocket watch. Little things. I like collaborating with the props and set designers, to feel like I'm involved in the character's life.

Q&A with Viggo Mortensen
Sara Stewart
New York Post
December 2008



"I listened to music, looked at paintings, trying to find my face in those pictures. Walking down streets that you wouldn't have walked down. And you never know where that's going to take you. You're lost. I didn't have people with me smoothing the way, because then I wouldn't have learned anything."

Viggo doing research for Good in Germany
The happy trails of Viggo Mortensen
Xan Brooks
The Guardian
18 April 2009



"I wanted to go to Auschwitz, which I did, and I was looking around. I'd found a map that showed all the places where the camps were. I went to every single one. I drove like a maniac, day after day, and sometimes it was difficult to find them. People don't want to talk about it so much, and in most cases, there's just a plaque. The thing that was valuable was just standing there. It was spring, there were flowers, and the sky was blue. You sit on the grass and yes, you're moved by all these things and the ghosts that you can feel. I was thinking about the guards, the prisoners, the kids... but there were things that I didn't expect. It's hard to explain, but it just keeps opening and opening, and you can never stop learning."

Viggo Mortensen
Play It As It Lays
By Philip Berk
Filmink
April 2009


["....for Good.....I play a professor who has music as his refuge. I also placed myself in the situation of having Mahler's music in my head. I felt the need to play the piano. Each night after filming, I played a bit, a way of leaving myself inspired for the scene the next day. Each time, something different came from my imagination. When I returned home I recorded what I had composed to save a trace, and it became an album!"

Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen the Insatiable
by Sophie Benamon, Studio Magazine
November 2007



"...I would be playing the piano and thinking about tomorrow's work and I ended up playing musically what the scene was for me, which I had never done before. I liked it so much I just did it all time. When I watched the movie last night there was a certain rhythm in the body language and speech-wise that has to do with the piano."

Viggo at the Rome Film Festival
Mr Good Bard
Sydney Morning Herald
28 February 2009



I did not like it, I felt uncomfortable. The first time I tried it on, I told the costume designer: "Is the hat that tight, are the boots that stiff?" I realized I felt bad because of the meaning I assigned to that uniform.

Viggo on wearing the SS uniform
The Dark Side Of The Hero
By Walder & Castro - translated by Graciela, Remolina and Zooey
Marie Claire (Spain)
June 2009



"He's maddening at times. He goes from being very passive and stumbling, and thinking it doesn't seem a big deal, until finally he's got the uniform on and denial kicks in. It's an accumulation of all of these compromises. He can't run away from it any more and then he crumbles. And at the root of it he has been seduced by flattery."

Viggo Mortensen
Sympathy for the devil
By Chrissy Iley
The Observer
19 April 2009



In Good his ambiguity excels itself. He's a Nazi you can't hate because you understand him. You warm to him, even. He's vulnerable, he's vain. He has been gradually seduced into the Nazi movement. He couldn't help himself.

Sympathy for the devil
By Chrissy Iley
The Observer
19 April 2009



"He imagines that people are singing-on the street, and wherever he is, in parks, or in buildings, at work-and they're not really. The music's being played, and then he takes a second look, and they're not. He's, like, feeling like he's losing his mind, you know? For him, the escape isn't alcohol, or drugs, or whatever - it's music."

Viggo Mortensen
VIGGOOOOOAL!
Scott Feinberg's awards season analysis
andthewinneris.blog.com
20 December 2007



"...there is a point, as he's building this new persona for himself and buying into his new status, that he becomes less distracted, flustered, stuttery. And it's this edifice that he's constructing that at the end is probably going to crumble."

Viggo Mortensen
Things are getting 'Good' for Mortensen
By John Clark
SF Gate-San Francisco Chronicle
23 January 2009



"We thought about the period of history, and the choice was made that everyone would speak with a neutral British accent, so that once the story starts you're just paying attention to what is happening and not the combination of strange accents."

Viggo Mortensen
Play It As It Lays
By Philip Berk
Filmink
April 2009



"My goal was not to think about history, and what we know about this period, but to think about this situation and each moment. Why does John Halder do the things that he does? He's not one thing or the other. He's not good or bad. He's somewhere in between, we all are."

Viggo Mortensen
Play It As It Lays
By Philip Berk
Filmink
April 2009